Unlike some other leaders around the world who were left red-faced after prematurely congratulating Mr George Bush for having won the US Presidency, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, remained tight-lipped throughout the day, refusing to comment on the neck-and-neck race.
While interest in the outcome of the US election was high in Israel, the Prime Minister's attention, as well as that of the public, was diverted by the violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with another four people killed yesterday.
According to an opinion poll conducted in the week before the presidential election, Mr Gore would have been a certain winner in Israel. The survey revealed that Israelis preferred the US Vice-President 2 to 1 over Mr Bush.
That probably has a lot to do with the affection many Israelis feel for President Clinton. In fact, that warmth for Mr Clinton has led some political commentators to quip on occasion that were Mr Clinton to run for national office in Israel, he would win by a landslide.
As a result of the key role the US has played in Middle East negotiations, Israeli political leaders have been monitoring the outcome closely. While Israeli pundits believe Mr Gore would probably play a more active role in the Middle East peace process, neither he nor Mr Bush would be expected to play the same intensive, energetic role that Mr Clinton has in moving the diplomatic process forward.
But Mr Uzi Baram, a senior Labour politician, said he believed that both the Democrats and the Republicans had a fundamental commitment to the state of Israel.
"Whoever was elected," he added, "it's very important that they give backing to Clinton in his efforts to push things forward in the process in the next two months."
The Palestinians, for their part, have felt that the US has tended to favour Israel, and so have been keen to break the American monopoly on the peace process. They will be hoping for a cooling of US relations with Israel under the new president. Relations between the US and Israel, said Mr Hassan Asfour, a Palestinian negotiator, should not come at the expense of the Arab nation.
Egyptians went to the polls yesterday at the start of the third and final stage of a month of elections after President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party had already secured more than half the seats. Ballot boxes were opened in the capital, Cairo, and seven other governorates, where 160 seats were to be filled in the 454-member People's Assembly.
AFP correspondents reported that, within the first hour, voters had been prevented from entering polling stations in two areas of Cairo where Islamist candidates were standing. Security forces had closed the gates of one of the stations where a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, Mamun al-Hodeibi, was standing, an AFP reporter said.